The IDF’s Home Front Command issues new instructions for residents of southern Israel following the firing of over 100 rockets from the Gaza Strip toward Israeli territory.

The instructions, which include a ban on agricultural work and limitations on the size of public gatherings and the number of people who can be at commercial centers, apply to communities in the border area near Gaza, the central Negev, Lachish region and southern Shfela plain.

The Defense Ministry body responsible for liaising with the Palestinians announces the closure of the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings with the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave.

Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, also announces the closure of the fishing zone off the coastal territory. He says all of the closures are until further notice.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the army “to give a hard blow” to terror groups in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian territory, a defense official is quoted as saying by Hebrew media.

The comment comes after Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, huddled with top security officials this afternoon for talks on the flare-up in the south.

The security cabinet will meet tomorrow to discuss the latest violence in Gaza, the Prime Minister’s Office said earlier today.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip warn they will increase attacks on Israel if the Israeli military continues to carry out strikes in response to rocket fire from the coastal enclave.

“We warn the enemy that our response will be even more severe and widespread in the event that it expands its aggression. We will remain the shield of our people and our land,” the so-called joint operations room says in a statement.

An event scheduled for this evening in Modiin, celebrating the opening of the Eurovision Song Contest later this month, has been canceled due to the escalation of violence between Gaza-based terror groups and the IDF, according to Hebrew media reports.

IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis says the military has air defense systems in place in case of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip toward the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.

Asked by Channel 13 if the IDF is interested in quickly ending the current round of fighting with Palestinian terror groups in light of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, Manelis says he did not hear the term “to end” during consultations today.

He says the IDF is prepared for the fighting to last a few days and will call up some reservists from intelligence and air defense units, as well as the Home Front Command, when Shabbat ends after nightfall this evening.

A senior defense official briefs Hebrew media that there are currently no efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

Separately, IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis tells Channel 13 news that the IDF is not connected to any ceasefire talks and that Israel has honored its side of an unofficial agreement with the Gaza-ruling Hamas to prevent violence on the border.

A Palestinian baby was killed by an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry in the enclave says.

The ministry said “baby Sabaa Arar, aged one year and two months, was killed and her mother, who is pregnant, was seriously injured” when their house was hit in one of the Israeli strikes that came in response to dozens of Gaza rockets fired at Israel.

An Israeli army spokeswoman says the military does not have any information on the incident. The army says it is targeting only military sites in its response to the rocket fire.

The Gaza health ministry adds that a total of two people have been killed and 18 injured since this morning in the Israeli strikes.

BRUSSELS — The European Union calls for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel to “stop immediately” and throws its backing behind efforts by Egypt and the UN to calm the situation.

“The rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel must stop immediately. A de-escalation of this dangerous situation is urgently needed to ensure that civilians’ lives are protected,” EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic says in a statement.

The Israeli military says it has attacked some 120 targets in the Gaza Strip after hundreds of rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel throughout the day, injuring two people, including an 80-year-old woman who was seriously injured after a rocket exploded in Kiryat Gat.

The army says it is prepared to continue conducting airstrikes if the attacks from the Strip continue.

According to the IDF, it targeted bases and facilities controlled by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups throughout the Strip, including an Islamic Jihad cross-border attack tunnel.

The military says it also destroyed an underground Hamas rocket production facility.

“This facility is unique in its manufacturing capabilities and is a key capability of the group to produce rockets in the Strip,” the army says.

The IDF says it bombed a multi-story building in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City that was used by the Hamas terror group’s intelligence service, in response to the ongoing rocket and mortar attacks from the coastal enclave.

President Reuven Rivlin issues a statement in response to today’s rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

As a tense and worrying Shabbat ends, I am praying for those injured and thinking of those sheltering from rockets in their safe spaces. We will continue to stand against this dreadful terror and will respond forcefully and swiftly to any attack on the security of our people

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu issues a sharp condemnation of Israel after a building in Gaza City that housed the offices of Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency was reportedly hit in an Israeli airstrike.

Targeting of @AnadoluAgency#Gaza office is new example of Israel’s unrestrained aggression. #Israeli violence against innocent people w/out distinction is a crime against humanity.Those who encourage Israel are also guilty. Will keep defending #Palestinian cause, even if alone.

Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip have stepped up their rocket and mortar attacks in recent hours, firing multiple fusillades at cities and towns throughout southern Israel, following Israeli airstrikes on two multi-story buildings in the coastal enclave, one of which the military says housed the Hamas terror group’s military intelligence service.

The United Nations envoy for Middle East peace says the UN and Egypt are working together to end the current round of fighting between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

“The United Nations is working with Egypt and all sides to calm the situation. I call on all parties to immediately de-escalate and return to the understandings of the past few months. Those who seek to destroy them will bear responsibility for a conflict that will have grave consequences for all,” Nikolay Mladenov says in a statement.

“Continuing down the current path of escalation will quickly undo what has been achieved and destroy the chances for long term solutions to the crisis. This endless cycle of violence must end, and efforts must accelerate to realize a political solution to the crisis in Gaza,” he adds.

Mladenov also says the flare-up “jeopardizes the significant progress made in recent weeks to relieve the suffering of people in Gaza, lift the closures, and support intra-Palestinian reconciliation.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issues a statement on his Twitter account harshly condemning Israel over an airstrike on a building in the Gaza Strip that reportedly housed the offices of Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

The Israeli military defends its targeting of the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency, which prompted outcries of condemnation from Ankara, saying the eight-story building was used by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups to conduct terrorist activities.

“The structure that was attacked was used by Hamas’s West Bank task force, which is responsible for directing terrorist operatives in the Judea and Samaria region to create terrorist infrastructure and to pass messages for terrorist activities and for transferring money and logistical support in order to carry out terror attacks against Israeli civilians,” the army says in a statement.

The military says the building also housed offices of senior members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which were “used for terrorist purposes.”

A fresh barrage of rockets is fired from the Gaza Strip toward the city of Beersheba and surrounding towns, as well as the coastal city of Ashkelon, sending tens of thousands of people rushing to bomb shelters.

The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman says the military does not believe that a Palestinian mother and baby were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

“There are more and more indications reaching us from the Gaza Strip that put serious doubt on the truth of the statement from Hamas’s healthy ministry about the death of the baby Saba Mahmoud Hamdan Abu Arar and her mother Falastin Saleh Abu Arar,” Maj. Avichay Adraee says in a tweet.

“According to these indications, the death was caused by terrorist activities by Palestinian militants and not by an Israeli strike,” he says.

Adraee indicates that the deaths may have been caused by a failed rocket attack against Israel.

“Will the health ministry in Gaza admit the truth or continue to cover up the lies of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas?” he asks.

A fresh barrage from the Gaza Strip triggers sirens in the city of Ashkelon and the surrounding area, as well as the Eshkol region of southern Israel. There are no immediate reports of injuries in the attack.

A mortar shell fired several minutes before this attack landed outside a home in Eshkol, damaging the building and car parked outside, but causing no injuries.

Israeli medics treated 58 people throughout the course of the day in southern Israel, most of them for anxiety attacks triggered by incoming rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip, the Magen David Adom ambulance service says.

Three people were directly injured by incoming projectiles. A woman in her 80s sustained serious wounds when a rocket hit next to the bus stop where she was standing in Kiryat Gat. A man in his 50s was moderately hurt by shrapnel in Ashkelon, with injuries to his arms and legs. A 45-year-old man in the Bedouin town of Lakia was lightly wounded by shrapnel to his leg.

Women look at the damage caused by a rocket fired from Gaza that hit a house in a town in Israel near the border with Gaza, Saturday, May 4, 2019. (AP/Tsafrir Abayov)

Ten people were lightly injured as they fell running to bomb shelters.

The remaining 45 suffered panic attacks brought on by the rockets and mortar shells, MDA says.

The United States says it condemns Gazan rocket attacks on Israel and backs the Jewish state’s right to self-defense.

“The United States strongly condemns the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza upon innocent civilians and their communities across Israel. We call on those responsible for the violence to cease this aggression immediately,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus says in a statement.

“We stand with Israel and fully support its right to self defense against these abhorrent attacks.”

Islamic Jihad says two men killed in bombing sorties overnight were fighters in the group’s Quds Brigade armed wing.

Mahmoud Sobhi Issa, 26, and Fawzi Abdel Halim Bawadi, 24, are named as the two men killed in the Bureij refugee camp.

A picture taken in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 5, 2019 shows an explosion following an airstrike by Israel. (SAID KHATIB / AFP)

The two bring the Palestinian death toll to six, including a woman and a baby killed in an explosion that Israel insists it was not responsible for. The Defense Ministry said the two were likely killed by a failed rocket launch.

With Shabbat out in America, US Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt has taken to Twitter to condemn the rocket fire from Gaza and back Israel’s retaliatory actions.

“Hamas & PIJ have engaged in yet another deplorable act of terrorism, indiscriminately firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilian communities. The U.S. stands firmly in support of Israel’s right to self-defense and we call on the international community to do the same,” he tweets.

Hamas & PIJ have engaged in yet another deplorable act of terrorism, indiscriminately firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilian communities. The U.S. stands firmly in support of Israel’s right to self-defense and we call on the international community to do the same.

Some 210,000 students who attend school in Israel’s south will get a day off because of continuing tensions with Gaza. Authorities have ordered all schools within a 40-kilometer radius of the Strip to remain closed Sunday.

Authorities also say workplaces that do not have access to a bomb shelter will be shut, but all others are remaining open.

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